


I’m Dying To Be Taken Apart

by RyeBread



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), UnDeadwood (Web Series)
Genre: BDSM, Belting/Whipping, Come play, Cropping, Dom/sub, Flashback, Hair-pulling, Hand Jobs, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Reaction, Religious Role Play, Rimming, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Safe Sane and Consensual, Safe Word Use, Spanking, Worship Play, Wrestling, pinning, role play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:42:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22529548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyeBread/pseuds/RyeBread
Summary: Clayton Sharpe shows up on Reverend Matthew Mason’s doorstep with something to confess. The good Reverend helps sort out his penance.
Relationships: Reverend Matthew Mason/Clayton Sharpe
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	I’m Dying To Be Taken Apart

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little more intense than my previous fic with these two and leans a little heavier on this being a scene between them. Please mind the tags and let me know if I somehow missed something that should be tagged but isn’t.

The room is well lit by gas lamp despite the hour, a smoldering fire in the hearth to provide additional light and warmth. The floors are sturdy wood, softened by a fur rug. The rug’s a relatively new addition, added for insulating heat and sound both. 

“How’re your knees, Clayton?” Reverend Matthew Mason asks, walking around the man gracing his quarters this evening.   
  
“Fine,” Clayton answers. He’s kneeling fully clothed, though Mason’s relieved him of his duster and boots upon entering his home. A man of the cloth should keep a clean house. 

“Fine?” Mason asks, trailing off, lips lingering on the space left behind. He stops in front of Clayton, his own fresh-shined boots reflecting the firelight, jingling softly as the spurs come to rest. “Mr. Sharpe, when you’re in a man’s home, it’s expected that you address him properly.”

“My knees’re fine, Reverend,” Clayton says, looking down at his gloved hands, one flat against the fur of the rug and the other in a tight fist. 

Mason clears his throat, jaw set in annoyance. Clayton doesn’t take the hint, eyes still cast stubbornly downward. The leather of Mason’s gloves creaks as he clenches them. “Did your mother never teach you the proper way to address someone in their own home, Mr. Sharpe?”   
  
“No, Reverend,” Clayton says. He shifts, leaning back on his haunches.

“No, she didn’t teach you; or no, she did teach you and you’re too obtuse to to remember her lessons?” Mason demands, reaching behind himself for the riding crop tucked into his waistband. It makes a satisfying whistle and snap when it lands sharply on Clayton’s covered shoulder, making the man grunt through clenched teeth. Finally, he looks up, catching Mason’s eyes. It’s a hard gaze he’s fixing him with; a stubborn one. Mason steps forward, a half step just close enough that Clayton has to sit up straight and tilt his chin to maintain eye contact. The crop touches Clayton’s bare chin, ushering it up to a more strained angle. “Sharpe, I am a gentle man when it comes to most things. When I train a horse for riding, I don’t break it. Do you know why that is?”   
  
“No,” Clayton answers, then winces with a cutoff yelp when the crop snaps against his other shoulder. “No, Reverend.”

“I don’t break horses because they’re animals, Mr. Sharpe. God didn’t give them the knowledge of right and wrong, they don’t choose to disobey because they’re being willfully disobedient. They disobey because they don’t know better. But you know better, don’t you?”

“Yes, Reverend,” Clayton says.    
  
“Good.” Mason steps back, letting Clayton lower his chin while still holding eye contact. “Now tell me why you’re here.”   
  
“I skipped church on Sunday,” Clayton says. Mason starts to lift a hand when he follows up with, “Reverend.”   
  
Mason lowers the crop. “And what were you doing that you missed my sermon, Mr. Sharpe? What was so important that you had to do it on the Lord’s day of rest? The Sabbath?”   
  
“I was riding from the next town over, Reverend. I wasn’t in town.”   
  
“Not in town.” Mason pretends to think it over, pacing around Clayton. He starts to get up from kneeling to watch Mason’s movement. “Eyes forward while I consider your transgression!”   
  
“Yes, Reverend.”

Mason draws a long breath through his nose. “Tell me, did you stop and say your prayers on Sunday, even though you  _ weren’t in town? _ ”

“No, Reverend.” He grunts at the snap across his back just below the shoulders, spine going stiff.

“Did you  _ think _ your prayers on Sunday?”

“No, Reverend,” he says, back still tight, bracing for the next blow. 

Mason tucks the crop back into his waistband, putting a hand on the back of Clayton’s neck. “Why are you so tense, Mr. Sharpe? Are you thinking you  _ deserve _ the whip for not even considering the Lord on the Sabbath?”

“Yes, Reverend,” Clayton bites out. “I deserve it.”

Mason’s hand slides upward, clenching and twisting into Clayton’s hair, just tight enough to hurt. “You deserve it, do you? I didn’t know you got to decide that, Mr. Sharpe. I didn’t know you  _ got to decide _ what your punishments were!”

“I’m sorry, Reverend,” Clayton says, hands still on the floor, neck arched back to bare his throat. “I deserve what you see fit.”   
  
“Good to know you can learn,” Mason says, but holds his grip in Clayton’s hair then takes hold of the scruff of his shirt with his other hand, hoisting him up to a standing position from kneeling. It’s no easy feat, given his legs must be all but numb after holding that position so long. “But you shouldn’t be begging forgiveness from me. I ain’t the one you’ve disrespected the worst here.”

“I’ll do my penance,” Clayton says, forced onto his toes. He grits his teeth, hands tight at his side as Mason releases his collar but maintains the hold on his hair. The way the muscle just below his ear twitches with the force of his restraint sends a little thrill through Mason. Clayton’s working hard to behave. Then he feels Clayton wobble, just a little, with a twinge in his knee.   
  
Mason leans close, lips touching the shell of Clayon’s ear to whisper, “Color?”   
  
He swallows, licks his lips, then breathes, “Yellow.”   
  


“Warm or cold?” Mason asks, relaxing his pull and letting Clayton stand on flat feet.    
  
“Warm,” Clayton says, still holding his pose.

“Good. Your legs bothering you today, Mr. Sharpe?”   
  
“Yes, Reverend,” Clayton answers. “Didn’t notice until I was on my toes.”   
  
Mason sighs, “That’s because you would’ve told me if you’d gone and hurt yourself before I had you kneeling. Am I right?”   
  
“Yes, Reverend. It’s an old hurt, acting up all the sudden.”   
  
Mason nods, more to himself than Clayton. “Were you going to tell me before I asked?”   
  
“I was going to tell you if it kept up,” Clayton says. “It weren’t bad yet.”   
  
“Weren’t bad, but you said yellow.” Mason fully relaxes his grip on Clayton’s hair, running his fingers through it, catching on the occasional knot and working it out. “That’s a bit of a paradox. Which was it: yellow, or not that bad?”   
  
“Yellow, Reverend,” Clayton admits. “I was going to tell you in another minute.”   
  
Mason debates the merits of pushing, and admittedly of punishing, but decides against it. Wouldn’t do anything but reinforce Clayton of trying to tough it out if it came to making him choose. “You’ll tell me earlier next time,” he says. “You don’t get to punish yourself. That’s for me and God. Tell me you understand that, Clayton.”   
  
“I understand, Reverend.”   
  
“Good,” Mason says, and his hand stops between Clayton’s shoulders, gloved fingers tapping the notch of his spine. “I’m going to put you across the bed and you’re going to count for me as I tan your hide. Color?”

“Green.”

“Once I’m good and sure you’re warmed up, you’re going to take that belt you’re wearing and hand it to me, respectfully, and you’ll count again as I teach you the consequence of disrespect. Color?”

“Green,” Clayton says, this time with a note of excitement, though a sharp glance at his face doesn’t reveal so much as a glint in his eye.

Mason tuts, but decides to move forward. “I think six hits of the belt is sufficient. One for each Our Father you missed on Sunday.”

“Yes, Rev-” Clayton starts, cut off by Mason’s hand over his face, thumb, ring finger, and pinky bracing his jaw with the tips of the other two pushed past his lips and pinning his tongue down. He doesn’t bite, too good for that. 

“I wasn’t asking, I was telling.” Mason stops squeezing his jaw, but pushes his two fingers deeper into Clayton’s mouth, sliding across and under his tongue, feeling the warmth seep through the leather. “You know that I only want to hear you speaking when I ask you something or I tell you to talk. I don’t break animals, and I don’t break what belongs to me, so-”   
  
There’s a chime, the bell he’s instructed Clayton to keep clenched in his hand since he was so insistent on having his mouth stuffed this scene, at some point. Possessiveness isn’t doing it for him. Fine, different approach.   
  
“I don’t break animals and I don’t break men,” Mason amends. “Animals can learn, but men have to be taught. Do you know the difference, Mr. Sharpe?”    
  
Clayton gasps when Mason removes his fingers. “No, Reverend.”   
  
“Animals don’t think. They learn from experience and that becomes their new way of thinking. You can break them, hurt them so bad they don’t remember nothing except how not to get hurt again. You can do that to men, too,” Mason says, puffing his chest a bit to emphasize just how much bigger he is compared to Clayton. He knocks him back a step using just the weight of his body. “But men have to be taught everything from talking to walking. God gave us the power to know what is good and what is bad, to decide they’ll obey or disobey. It is my duty to teach you when to obey.”   
  
Clayton stumbles backward, the back of his knees hitting the mattress behind him. He starts to fall, but Mason catches him by the lapels. 

“You’ve been riding in those pants,” Mason snaps. “Would you dirty my sheets? Take them off before you sit down!”   
  
“Yes, Reverend,” Clayton says, forced to undo his belt buckle with just a few inches between them, held against the force of gravity by the straining threads of his shirt in Mason’s grip. He’s careful as he slips the button of his denim pants, never letting his knuckles brush Mason’s stomach. Mason smiles at the attention to detail—he hasn’t been given permission to touch him yet. With the buttons unfastened, he has to hook his thumbs into the waistband and shove them down his thighs. Once they’re at his knees, Mason lets him drop onto the mattress.   
  
“Fold them nice and tight now. And roll your belt on top when you set them on the bed,” Mason orders, walking to the door to place his crop on the hook along with his cape and pulpit gown. He keeps an eye on Clayton as he brushes down his shirt and trousers with his hands.   
  
Clayton doesn’t respond, dutifully pulling the legs of his pants straight and tucking them over each other to press out the wrinkles.    
  
“Good. You  _ can _ be taught, Mr. Sharpe. I knew you could choose to be good for me.”   
  
Clayton, once again, simply finishes what he was instructed to do without comment. He stifles a sneeze, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand before placing the pants at the foot of the bed with the looped belt on top. That done, he rests his hands on his bared thighs, right hand still clenched over the bell while the other lies flat. 

“Tell me you want to be good for me.”   
  
“I want to be good for you, Reverend.” Clayton looks up at him, eyes clear in their deep-set sockets.    
  


“Then get down in front of me and take off my boots and socks.” Mason makes no move to sit, waiting a moment before Clayton gets the picture and kneels before him, quickly setting about removing the spurs and unlatching the boot straps. He says nothing when Mason puts a hand on the crown of his head for balance, forcing Clayton’s face against his groin while lifting his leg just enough for him to pull the boot off.

Clayton breathes heavily against Mason’s covered cock, but doesn’t make a move to mouth against it or stroke his cheek over it. He just rolls Mason’s sock down and off his foot and helps him lower it back down to the floor before setting about freeing the other one. His movements are deft and steady, even if his breathing is a little ragged.

  
Mason pulls Clayton to standing once he’s barefoot, pointing him toward the mattress. “You’re going to roll over on the bed for me, tuck your knees in like you’re prostrating yourself at the altar. What are you going to to say each time you feel my hand touch your bottom?”   
  
“The number of times you’ve struck me, Reverend.”   
  
Mason pulls his glove tight to his fingers, flexing them just to hear the squeak. “What are you going to say after that?”   
  
Clayton swallows, “Thank you, Reverend.”   
  
“And if I ask you your color between a hit?”   
  
“Red, yellow, or green, Reverend.”   
  
“Remind me again what each color means.” Mason sits down beside Clayton, keeping eye contact, making sure he’s still alert for this part.   
  
“Red means stop, just like for the trains. Yellow means you’re going to check in and make sure we can keep going. Green means I’m not hurting too bad and I wanna keep going.”   
  
“Good. What do you say if I’m hurting you but haven’t asked your color?”   
  
“Red to stop, yellow to check,” Clayton says, and there’s a drop of impatience in his tone. Not enough to be met with discipline, but enough to raise Mason’s brow.   
  
“And if you want to stop all together, Clayton?” Mason’s about ready to strike him upside the head if Clayton actually rolls his eyes.   
  
“ _ Panikhida _ ,” Clayton says, and he doesn’t roll his eyes, but if his impatience had true heat he’d have set Mason’s beard ablaze. 

“You know the rules, and one of the rules is to go over the rules, Clayton,” Mason says, and if he’s breaking the scene it’s only because Clayton’s broken his trust a little by keeping his hurt knee to himself. “Now,  _ Mr. Sharpe. _ I believe I told you to get on your knees.”

Clayton dutifully rolls over on the bed, hands above his head and legs folded beneath him. He’s wearing the plain cloth underwear and not that  _ sinful _ jockey he’d gotten who knows where. At least that makes it easier for Mason to stay focused. He gives him a quick rub on the left cheek, enough to get a decent feel for it—as though he could forget. Left arm bracing Clayton’s waist, Mason’s right hand comes down fast and hard, cracking against skin loud enough to reverberate through the room alongside Clayton’s howl of, “One! Thank you, sir!”

_ Sir _ . It gives Mason pause, sending him back years, almost a decade. The smoke from the hearth smells like black powder and the cry of pain is sharper, more present than a voice from the past has any right to be. He shakes his head, knocking memories off his senses and back to the pits they belong in. 

“Matthew?”

“Sharpe?” Mason asks, aware suddenly that he’s paused with his arm in the air.

“Color?”

“Yellow,” Mason says, lowering his arm to give Clayton’s rump a pat. “No  _ sir _ tonight. Father or Reverend.”

“Yes, Reverend.” Clayton relaxes, falling back into a proper prostration. He’s newly patient as Mason collects himself, not even giving his rear that little anticipatory shake as usual. He earns the full force of Mason’s next strike to his bottom, calling out, “Two! Thank you, Reverend!”

Mason gives Clayton another half dozen strikes before switching to sharper, but less intense swats; wanting to keep him tender without letting up completely as he prepares for the next step. Clayton’s sworn up and down that he’s not due to go riding anywhere another fortnight, that he’s got nowhere to walk to further than the grocer for the rest of the week either. Mason’ll be mad as a bull if it turns out Clayton was lying or misleading him, but they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it. For now, he stops at the sound of Clayton calling his twenty-second strike. “Color?”

“Green,” Clayton says, panting through tears. His whole body is rigid with pain, but his underwear is straining to burst from the front. “Lord help me, green.”

“I think your diligence in accepting your penance has earned a brief reprieve, Mr. Sharpe. On your back.”

“Yes, Reverend,” he says, clambering over and hissing as his battered ass touches the comforter. 

“I expect you to drink without spilling a drop,” Mason says, reaching for the glass on the nightstand as well as the wet towel in the basin beside it. “And wipe your face.”

Clayton accepts both, though Mason has to support his back and shoulders as he gulps down the water. He blows his nose into the cloth, which Mason accepts back with care and puts beside the basin, then returns the glass to its spot. “Thank you, Reverend.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Sharpe. You’re being so very good tonight. The Lord might even forgive you for skipping church, you’ve been so penitent. 

Hand me your belt if you think you need to serve out the rest of your penance, or you may lay face down on the bed and we’ll tend to your aches.” Mason watches carefully as Clayton leans more weight on his behind, wincing, but his cock twitches hard beneath the thin cloth of his undergarments.

He takes the belt from atop his pants and holds it in both hands. Kissing the fold, he offers it to Mason, “Help me, Father.”

Fuck if it isn’t the most sexually charged Mason’s ever been, being handed a strip of woven leather. He tries to tamp it down, stay in character, and keep his expression severe. “Assume the prayer position.”

As Clayton moves to obey, Mason kisses the belt over top of where Clayton had and watches until Clayton has to look forward. Clayton hums with anticipation as Mason pulls down his underwear and exposes his pink ass to the warm air. The belt drags over the bright marks, rough and cool. “I’m ready, Father.”

“I know,” Mason says. He lets the belt drag again. The buckle firmly in hand, he gives it a half-swing, careful to aim above the thighs and flat across both cheeks. 

“One, Father! Thank you, Father!” The violent red line quickly swells into a welt. 

“Color, Sharpe?”

“Green, Father.”

“Then ask for the next lash.” Mason snaps the belt between his hands, weighing his own willingness to continue. It’s only five more, and Clayton doesn’t have anything he’ll suffer overmuch for having a whipped ass.

“May I have another, Father?” Clayton begs, cock hanging heavy between his legs and balls drawn tight.

“Yes.” Mason snaps another blow, higher.

“Two, Father! Thank you, may I have another?”

Third, similarly answered by Clayton who is so eager to feel that sting. He lifts his ass to meet the blow, spine arched and thighs trembling. He’s never prayed so hard in his life, Mason reckons. The fourth lands hard across the welt of the first, lower than he intended with the way Clayton’s rocking. As Mason lifts the belt for the next, he sees the blood, running fresh and thin from where the last strike hit the too-thin tender strip of skin. The fifth strike wavers before he can finish the motion and Mason’s stomach churns. “P- _ Panikhida.” _

Clayton sits up straight, eyes clear as ever. Probably never even dulled with Mason’s performance tonight. He hoists his underwear up, shuffling across the bed until he’s almost flush to Mason’s side. It takes him a moment to realize Clayton’s taking the belt from him, saying, “Give it here, Matt. We’re done, you can let it go.”

His fingers are cold, holding the belt tighter than he means to. “I’m sorry, Clayton.”

“None of that, preacher-man,” Clayton barks, finally prying it out of his hand. “You did great.”

“I owe you two more lashes,” Mason says, trying to get back into a laughing mood.

“Hey now, scene’s over. Don’t owe me shit. You alright?”

“Didn’t mean to make you bleed,” Mason says, putting his hands to his face. “Shoulda been more careful.”

“We both knew it could happen,” Clayton says, rolling up the belt and setting it aside. “I shouldn’t’ve called you ‘sir’ when you hadn’t told me to when we were planning this. Got you into the wrong headspace for it.”

“I’ll stop apologizing if you will,” Mason says, taking his gloves off so that maybe the fire will warm them up. 

“Sure,” Clayton says. He strips out of his white cotton shirt, folding it and laying it over the pants and belt. Mason knows what he’s doing, but he’s still coming up from the sudden drop and can’t make himself stop him from taking charge. Clayton nudges Mason’s shoulder as he stands up off the bed, “This was supposed to be my scene, so cut that shit out.”

“What shit?”

“The shit where you’re thinking you failed to be man enough for me. Cut it out.” Clayton walks over to the nightstand, taking two more fresh rags from beside the basin and dunking them into the cool water. One he tosses to Mason, the other he holds in his off hand as he pulls his underwear off fully.

Mason frowns at the sight of the bloody streak across the seat of them, “Seems I owe you another pair of those.”

“I all but soaked through the front, a little blood on the ass wasn’t gonna make them any more salvageable.” He pats at the welt, taking a look at the cloth. “See? Barely a scratch and you’re here treating it like you split me open.”

“I didn’t mean to make you bleed and I did anyway,” Mason says, though the initial panic is over and he can see how shallow the wound is. It’s already stopped bleeding, the light dribble swiped away with another brush of the cloth before Clayton discards it. He pats his face with the rag Clayton had tossed him. “Get back over here and we can still salvage the night.”

“I wasn’t intending on anything else.” Clayton rubs his ass ruefully as he walks into Mason’s space, “You got some real good licks in there.”

Mason’s mouth twists into a smirk, “I betcha I could manage some better ones.”

“Why, Reverend, are you suggesting something so filth-“ Clayton starts, cut off by Mason pulling him down for a kiss that’s equal parts rough-housing as playing, wrestling him down onto the covers. “This ain’t fair,” Clayton says between kisses. “You’re a big sumbitch!”

“Did I ever give the impression I fight fair?” Mason asks, summarily pinning Clayton belly-down beneath him, twisting his arm behind his back and threading a hand into that thick hair of his. He hoists Clayton’s arm a bit higher, just to hear him moan. “I ain’t never met a man as turned on by being hurt as you, Clayton Sharpe.”

“I ain’t met a man as turned on by hurting me,” Clayton groans. “You gonna do something about it or not?”

“Keep your arm there,” Mason hisses, letting go of his wrist. He gives Clayton’s hair another pull, getting him to push out his chest a bit more and testing how willing he is to keep his elbow bent behind his back. When he’s sure Clayton can maintain it, he slides further down Clayton’s back and puts his free hand over his swollen, red cheeks to give them a pinch. “It ain’t hurting you that turns me on; it’s how wild you get.”

“What’s the difference?” Clayton asks, breathing hard at the angle he’s forced to hold. 

“If I liked seeing you hurt, I’d be trying to make you cry. Instead, I wanna hear you scream.” He licks a wet line over the welt, blowing on it to hear the groaning. He pries the cheek to the side, letting him see Clayton’s hairy hole, pink and hot before he licks that, too. 

“Ah, fuck!”

That’s what he’s after. Mason reaches under Clayton to feel his cock, running bare fingers over the wet length of him. His stroke takes him from the base where Clayton’s balls are tight to his body to the crown that’s leaking a steady stream to help smooth the glide of the next pass. Mason pushes his tongue against Clayton’s hole, spreading and pushing. He knows how to get him there. He relaxes his grip on Clayton’s hair until he’s got it closer to the ends, away from the scalp so he can pull more gently for a sharper pain. 

Clayton keeps his arm tucked against his back, hand in a fist with his fingers locked so tight the glove is deformed at the palm. He rocks back against Mason’s mouth, a litany of swears and prayers both escaping him under the Reverend’s ministrations. “Matthew, God-”

They’re both old men, Mason knows it well, but Clayton falls apart quick as anything and he takes it as the sweetest compliment. He catches spurt of come in his palm as Clayton’s cock pulses, twitching to a finish as Mason gently bites swell of his ass before pulling away. “Such a gift you give me.”

Clayton’s panting, collecting himself as best he can under the circumstances and pulling himself up after freeing his own arm. How he can have such a burst of vigor after most men’d be halfway to sleeping, Mason doesn’t know, but the adrenaline burst has Clayton tossing him to the bed. A man on a mission, he has Mason’s pants unbuttoned and cock free in moments, pulling Mason’s messy hand down to his dick. “Let me help.”

The sticky slide of Clayton’s come on his dick, the expert twist of Clayton’s wrist. Mason doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of lasting more than a few minutes. He sinks his teeth into Clayton’s shoulder as the man in his lap guides him over the edge. “Man alive you know how to handle a cock, Clayton Sharpe.”

“Such kind compliments from a man of the cloth,” Clayton says, drily. He leans in for a kiss only for Mason to rear back.

“Hold your horses, this part was at least on the agenda tonight.” He extricates himself from Clayton long enough to get to the washroom and fetch another set of rags and a glass of water with some mint sprigs. He returns, handing the rags and a glass to Clayton as he chews the mint and swishes some water around his mouth before spitting it into the basin. “Now you can kiss me.”

“How romantic,” Clayton grouses, wiping his hands and cock clean. Still, the kiss is genuine and far more tender than Mason had anticipated. He gathers the rags once they’ve cleaned themselves as best they can, shoving Mason back to the mattress when he tries to get up to help. “Just lie down, Reverend. I’ve got this part.”

_ So he does _ . Mason reclines on the bed, still mostly clothed, and buttons his pants back up. His thoughts are mostly quiet, and he doesn’t have long to wait before Clayton returns to clamber over top of him, nude as the day he was born and utterly unbothered. Mason puts a hand on his cheek when he rests his head on his chest, laying belly down between Mason’s legs. “I still expect to see your face when Sunday rolls around.”

“Can I get a divine pardon for not sitting on those fucking oak pews?”

Mason chuffs a laugh, scratching at his sideburns, “We’ll get you a cushion.”

**Author's Note:**

> Something about these two screams kink to me and I am but a humble porn vessel to see that through.


End file.
